


overexposure

by formytroubledmind



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 104th Training Corps Shenanigans, Angst, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, Fights, Slow Burn, just lots of angst ok, negotiating relationship things, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 15:59:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formytroubledmind/pseuds/formytroubledmind
Summary: exposureɪkˈspəʊʒə,ɛk-/nounthe state of having no protection from something harmful."the dangers posed by exposure to asbestos"synonyms:	subjection, submission, vulnerability, laying open"injuries resulting from exposure to harmful chemicals"in which there is a healthy dose of teenage angst and figuring things out, but also it's just plain old sad mikannie.





	1. i've got boulders on my shoulders

The first time Mikasa talks to Annie, she’s suspicious and maybe even a little angry.

She says, “Maybe you could show me some moves too.”

And Annie pauses, shifts into a fighting stance, hands up and small smile tugging at her lips.

She replies, “Give me your best shot.”

What follows next is flurry of limbs and quick movement, two skilled warriors engaged in combat—Mikasa starts off aggressive, aiming for a hard strike, and Annie dodges, returning with a counter-attack of her own. Soon people begin to gather, placing bets and shouting encouragement. She’s panting hard now, but she’s enjoying this; the satisfaction that comes with each hit that she manages to land sends a tingle of excitement down her spine, and any resistance that she encounters makes the victory of the eventual throw—just a sly twist of her hips and the correct alignment of bodies away—sweeter.

She knows she will win this fight.

Mikasa lands hard on the dusty ground, chest heaving and slightly winded. Annie holds out her upturned palm, half-expecting the other girl to ignore her, but Mikasa grabs on. She hauls her up.

She catches sight of a stoic face in the crowd, one head above the others and expression unamused.

Pinpricks of worry start to spread across her skin. The gravity of what exactly she’d done begins to suck her into a black hole of panic, and she’s overcome by the need to _get away_.

“Good fight,” Mikasa notes, and Annie nods, barely listening, flicking her hair behind her ear, a gesture-turned-habit grown out fidgety fingers and too long fringes. She regrets the action almost immediately—it shows too much of her face—and when it falls over her eyes she doesn’t move to tuck it back.

Everyone’s looking at them now, and it makes her uncomfortable. Annie draws the neck of her hoodie up, covering the exposed sliver of skin at her neck, slides her hands into her pockets and makes her way into the crowd, all of whom part before her.

She walks at a brisk pace, fisted hands stuffed right in the pockets of her hoodie and gaze directed at the floor. She doesn’t stop till she makes it behind the shield of the barracks, out of everyone’s sight. Only then does she take a moment to compose herself, taking a deep breath and running a hand through the loose bun of yellow hair.

Once done, she keeps moving.

She finds little respite in one of her quiet places—a small area on the boundary of the training grounds, where the hard-packed earth gives way to long grasses and tall trees, which sway gently in the light spring breeze. She checks over a shoulder again—certain that she might have heard footsteps, but there’s no one in sight—and decides that the coast is clear. The grasses tickle her face as she lowers herself down, and she brushes them away half-heartedly. Her gaze flicks to the sky; with the sun temporarily obscured and clouds white and puffy, extending a small hand as her fingers grasp at the air, as she lets her mind wander.

She used to do this as a child, lying in the fields outside their house with her dad. Watching clouds go by, spending quiet, lazy afternoons. That was a long time ago, and she’d give anything to have those days back.

She sighs. Her hand drops back to her side. The sun is in her face again.

She’d been so caught up in the moment, so intent on sparring with Mikasa that she’d forgotten, and now her mistake runs endless reels in her mind as she twists the silver ring round and round her finger, wringing the flesh round and round and round.

It’s only been a few months, and already she’s so _tired_ of this. The thought crosses her mind without so much as a security check, and she hurries to purge similar contemplations from her head.

“I’m not weak,” she says, but feels just as small and drained as ever.

It’s a while before she notices that the sharp point of her ring has dug a long red band across the pale skin of her finger. It’s bleeding, just a little, but she presses a thumb down on the scratch and rubs at the abused skin till it heals.

She returns for lunch, slipping through the crowd, quietly getting a tray and sitting down alone at the end of a table. She spies Reiner across the room, talking loudly to the other trainees. Her mood sours.

“Hey,” someone taps her lightly on her upper arm, and she spins around to see Bertholdt leaning down beside her. His eyes widen as she makes contact, the grey orbs staring back at her. “Um, is anyone sitting here?”

She quirks a single eyebrow, and he takes it as a no, sliding gracefully into the seat opposite despite his long frame.

“Not with Reiner,” she observes.

He seems startled by her blunt approach, but nods slowly. “Yeah,” he eases out, and chances a glance at the blond boy a few tables away, and his mouth turns down almost imperceptibly for a millisecond before he turns back to look at her. “I just—”

“Look,” she cuts him off, “I _know,_ alright. I got careless, and I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“I..erm, uh, I didn’t really want to talk about that, actually.”

Oh. That was unexpected.

“Although…you should be more careful,” he pauses, glancing at her face before dropping his gaze back to his plate. “I just wanted to say you fought really well today,” he mumbles to his picked-at beans.

Despite everything, Annie can feel a blush spreading its way across her cheeks, and she fights to keep her tone cools when she replies.

“Thanks. You’re not bad either, when you actually want to fight.”

Bertholdt acknowledges the statement with a quiet, mumbled “thank you”, and they spend the rest of lunch in awkward silence, with her waiting till he finishes the roll of bread to part ways; he back to Reiner’s side and she alone.

She spots Mikasa later that day, fingers curled tight around her brother’s bicep and sandwiched between him and their blonde friend. She’s listening to Eren go on about killing titans, and the way in which she _looks_ at him makes Annie’s stomach turn.

There’s something in her gaze that screams affection, understanding, even though she’s probably heard his impassioned soliloquies—rambles, if she were to be honest, filled with fist shaking and wide green eyes, she listens attentively.

Annie watches the trio in front of her. They’re in sync, she realizes, in every way possible. Her mind drifts to her own set of three, and she shakes her head.

 

* * *

Training that day is manageable—they’re going through the gear again, fixing belts and hoops, and, _if you shits have some brain cells_ , Shadis had said, _we’ll try a course_.

Even though her face remains impassive and expression unreadable, Annie’s excited.

It’s been about three months since she’d enlisted, and frankly she’s been aching to start working on actual _maneuvering._ The basic units on how to handle knifes and hand to hand combat, although admittedly necessary for some recruits, had bored her; she’d been trained with them before

The only highlight was shoving Reiner’s ass into his face.

It’s dangerous; she tells herself one early morning, exactly a week after the fight with Mikasa. You can’t do this. You shouldn’t.

Annie knows her limits. She knows why she’s being so cautious; why she mustn’t forget the reason she joined the military, why they all can’t get too attached. But something about the dark-haired girl intrigues her, and despite what’s been drilled into her head, she decides that she’s human after all.

She wants friends.

She wants to have people she can swing her arm around after training when they stagger to the showers; people that will braid her hair and help her out of her gear, people who will watch with careful eyes when she flies through a course—not because they’re looking on in awe, but because they’re ready to catch her if she falls.

And maybe, she wants someone who she can be truthful around.

It’s difficult to think of things to say to Mikasa, having mostly stuck to herself or occasionally dealing with Reiner and Bertholdt, but Annie tries.

She waits outside of the girls’ barracks, leaning on the weathered wood of the long building, arms crossed and face impassive, watching the girls trickle out in groups into the open field to the mess hall.

As Mikasa passes, red scarf fluttering in the light breeze, looking oddly alone without the brunet and the blond by her side, Annie makes her move.

“I didn’t manage to teach you anything that day,” she says. Her tone is flat, bored and seemly apathetic, but her heart is thumping hard in her chest, and she wonders if the other girl can hear it too. “If you really want to, I could teach you the throw Eren did on Jean.”

Mikasa stops. “Sure,” she says, lips curling just a degree at the corners.

Annie works the same way she did on Eren, demonstrating on an unwilling Reiner, and Mikasa copies her, movements slightly hesitant but correct nonetheless. Annie’s hands are firm as she corrects her stance, making minute adjustments—Mikasa’s a fast learner—and her voice slowly thawing, losing its cool edge as she gives tips and explains the mechanics. She’s patient; a quality that Mikasa hadn’t known she possessed, or never before been in a position to observe, but appreciates anyway.

Mikasa picks up the move quickly, and when Annie holds out her arms and makes eye contact, she raises a single quizzical eyebrow.

“Throw me.” The blonde says simply, flicking loose strands of hair from her face in a hasty attempt to hide a blush.

Mikasa is caught slightly off-guard, but recovers quickly,

“Thank you,” Mikasa says, and nods at her. Annie almost feels a flush of satisfaction.

 

* * *

They settle into some sort of routine—meet each other long before dawn, train and spar and fight, get to the showers early, then join the other trainees when Shadis calls them into the field for their morning exercises.

Annie doesn’t seem to require a lot of sleep, judging from the fact that on most mornings, Mikasa finds her propped up behind the barracks; on one of the sheds, dressed in her usual faded yellow hoodie and a pair of grey slacks, hair tied up in her distinctive bun and fringe falling over an eye. In the dim light, she looks smaller than usual with her hood up and small frame lost among the folds of fabric, blending into the pale walls of the storage shed. The flicker of a nearby torch casts shadows across the other girl’s face, but Mikasa can almost makes out a faint hint of a smile—a slight upward quirk of a thin lip—as she comes into her vision.

“Can’t sleep?” she’d asked one day, upon seeing Annie outside the barracks following a particularly brutal training. She’d almost not wanted to get up at all—the bed, however uncomfortable, seemed a good option, seeing as how everyone else had fallen asleep as soon as the last candles had been blown out.

Annie pauses, choosing to answer with a simple “yeah,” and hopes it will suffice for the time being. She crosses her arms, shaking hands tucked in the soft material of her hoodie; out of sight.

Annie dreams. Except they’re really nightmares, not borne out of her imagination, but a collection of memories she tries so, so hard to repress.

But they’ve found a way to come back to her; in her sleep.

It starts out as it always does, with rain.

She’s drenched and cold, standing in the middle of a dimly lit field as rain pelts the back of her head and lightning flashes across the sky.

People are shouting at her, voices loud and harsh. The words that leave their lips are unintelligible, distorted by the wind, but intrinsically she knows their message:

Transform. Now.

They want her to cut herself, make herself bleed.

“I can’t,” she protests, voice choked and wobbly, scared to death and on the verge of breaking down. “I _can’t_.”

She’s crying, tears running down her cheeks, face red and ugly. Her clothes are torn and muddy, and she’s barefoot. In her left hand she’s gripping onto a knife, the feel of the handle to foreign and the blade too large. She stares down at it, and the image wavers through her tears.

“I’m can’t, I can’t,” she repeats, gabbling the string of words again and again, pitch rising as she reaches hysteria. “I’m can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t—”

Someone rips the knife from her grasp, and she’s sent sprawling in the mud with a swift kick to her back.

She struggles to stand, and even as she does so, her arm is wrenched forward and up, fingers encircling it completely and digging into the flesh hard enough to leave bruises.

“Can you do it by yourself, do you want me to do it for you?” The man says. His voice is low and threatening, and right in her ear. He takes the knife, and the cold metal blade is pressed, hard, onto the underside of her arm, right on the tender skin.

Annie cries out, ragged and raw, and a child too young, but also a child no longer.

She turns her head, looking to the wood platform suspended twenty feet in the air, and the figures dressed in black huddled there. She looks for her father, and his gaze locks with hers for the briefest of seconds, before—this moment hurts the most, more than any blade; and it’s crystallized in her memory, she can see it as clear as ever, the single moment where he makes his decision, where—

He turns away.

The man cuts her then, cold blade against soft flesh in a drawn-out moment of searing pain, and flings the knife away.

The last thing she remembers is standing alone in the middle of the field, blood running red down the inside of her arm, bleeding out in the rain.

Her first transformation is another nightmare in of itself. The details themselves are foggy—the feeling of being overwhelmed and weary seems to consume the experience—and thinking about it makes her feel heady, almost like there is too much to be taken in and her skull is caving in under the pressure.

But she can’t help but think of it, to dreg up old memories.

 


	2. collarbones begin to crack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm just saying, we know how this goes. don't expect a happy ending.

It’s just after lights out and the girls’ barrack is quiet as each trainee gives in to exhaustion. They’re lying side by side in their bunks, moonlight filtering through the window and illuminating the room in a pale glow, hands gently clasped under the sheets. There’s slight rustling to her left, and Annie’s skin prickles as the other girl shifts closer until the tips of her hair brush across Annie’s cheek.

“Which branch are you joining?” Mikasa whispers in the delicate curve of her ear, hot breath ghosting across sensitive skin, sending shivers down her spine.

Annie hesitates, shifting her weight slightly on the thin mattress, staring at the ceiling. It’s a difficult question—but it’s not as if she doesn’t know how to answer; it’s on the tip of her tongue, but she just can’t figure out how to place it delicately.

“The military police,” she finally whispers, and beneath her calloused fingertips, Mikasa stiffens.

“Annie,” she begins, and the word hangs in-between them, caught in the still air.

“And you?” Annie starts, almost defensively. “Where are _you_ going?”

“The Survey Corps.”

“You know the kill rate,” Annie mutters, and her tone is icy.

“I do. And you know how the system is. It’s corrupted and disgusting and—”

“You’re following the suicidal bastard, aren’t you?” Annie spits.

Mikasa moves her hand away, and Annie’s certain it clenches into a fist as she rolls over. Annie stares at tensed muscles and red ridges cut by the gear on Mikasa’s back until her vision blurs, then does the same, curling away from the other girl, eyebrows drawn low and lips pressed tight.

“Yes,” Mikasa says, a long time later. Annie knows—she’s always known—that Eren comes first, but it still hurts when Mikasa actually acknowledges the fact out loud.

And it scares her because she actually cares.

They spend the rest of the night side by side in silence, each pretending to be asleep, and wait for the pale pink rays of dawn to stream in through the dusty windows.

 

* * *

“I’m not doing this out of choice,” Annie shouts. “Do you think I want to hurt you? I’m only doing because of circumstance.”

“And what exactly are they?” Mikasa asks quietly—dangerously, voice dripping with venom.

Annie lets her silence speak. She can’t tell Mikasa that she’s hiding terrible secret. So she purses her lips, and stares ahead, seemingly apathetic.

Mikasa’s anger seems to mount with every passing second, and her fists clench so hard that the veins in her arms are beginning to show.

But Annie keeps her cold blue eyes fixed on the other girl, mouth pinched and arms wrapped around herself, refusing to engage.

She will wait out the storm, then pick up the pieces. It’s easier that way, she reasons, and waits till Mikasa leaves—slamming the door so hard that it sends a cloud of dust into the room—before she latches the door and slides down to her knees.

Annie buries her face in her hands, knuckling her eyelids. This confrontation was unavoidable, and she knows it; she’s known that they’ll come to this big fallout sooner or later, but she’d be even more of a liar if she said it wasn’t difficult.

“Shit,” she exhales. “Shit.”

 

* * *

It's the night of the disbanding.

Annie comes in when everyone else has left, shutting the door quietly behind her. She takes several slow, hesitant footsteps until she’s standing barely inches away, skin tingling and heart hammering uncontrollably. She can feel Mikasa’s gaze lingering on her, but the other girl doesn’t make a sound; and for once Annie finds the silence oppressive.

“I’m sorry,” she says, reaching out, but Mikasa steps back and she catches only the edges of her jacket in her fists. Mikasa stiffens, but allows the other girl to rest her head on her chest. Her hands stay at her sides, threatening to clench, and she struggles to keep her breathing under control even as the other girl clings on, body shaking and chest heaving, pressing raw and ragged apologies to the folds of her white cotton shirt.

She stares down at the girl under her until her vision blurs, fighting hard to hold back the wetness that wells up at the corner of her eyes, but it spills over, tears dripping off the end of her nose and onto the unraveling bun of blonde hair.

And she can’t seem to stop.

Mikasa crumbles. Her hands move from their sides, and she’s tenderly undoing the knot, fingers combing through the soft locks. Annie looks up at her, startled by the sudden contact, and Mikasa reaches out slowly, and gently cups Annie’s face, thumb resting on the curve of a soft, smooth cheek and brushing across pale, wet eyelashes and the delicate skin of an swollen eyelid.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, sounding surprisingly calm despite the quiver that seems to have attached itself to the end of her words. “It’s your life and your decision, and we just chose differently.”

Annie shakes her head. “I’m a bad person,” she says, voice low and wavering. “I’m so sorry for letting you love me.”

Mikasa tilts Annie’s chin up, fingers brushing her fringe away. Her hands reach out for the other girl’s, easing them away from her jacket, and weave their fingers together.

She takes a deep breath. “I want to have happy memories of you. I don’t want our last day to be like this.”

Annie leans forward, on tiptoe, and Mikasa bends a little down till their foreheads are touching. Annie’s warm breath caresses her cheeks and they make eye contact, stormy grey against icy blue.

“I’m sorry,” Annie says a final time, before leaning just a little further and kissing her full on the lips. Mikasa responds, hands squeezing a little tighter before letting go to let her arms wind around the smaller girl’s waist, and Annie curls her arms around Mikasa’s neck.

They settle into some sort of rhythm, sliding to their knees, with Annie on Mikasa’s lap, a leg on either side and hands on the nape of her neck, fingers kneading small circles on the supple skin. Mikasa has her own around Annie’s waist, pulling them close into another kiss.

They kiss like they fight—clothes fisted in roaming hands, grappling, panting for breath, bodies close and mogmaments aggressive and passionate as they press in deeper.

And they’re both naturals.

Annie’s overcome by the need to need to get closer; to somehow combine their essence. She wants to explore the muscular expanse of Mikasa’s back, trail her lips down her collarbone and to feel skin upon skin, flesh upon flesh.

 

* * *

The last time Mikasa talks to Annie, she’s suspicious and so very angry.

She says, “ _Annie_ , fall.”

And Annie can no longer feel the other girl’s boots on her face as she slides down and Mikasa rises, each moving further apart with every passing second. She knows what awaits her—weapons that will shred her skin, soldiers so ready to kill her, and a titan blind with rage and hungry for blood.

She knows she will lose this fight.

**Author's Note:**

> chapter titles are from the front bottoms' _be nice to me_. i love that band.
> 
> other things:  
> i missed this fandom v much! gotta get back into it all - but i've got original fiction too if you wanna check it out: [aquietpining.wordpress.com]()
> 
>  
> 
> as always - follow on tumblr for funzies: [aquietpining.tumblr.com]()


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